


until you pull too hard (I may snap when I move close)

by electriceell



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Grief, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-23 13:58:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17081594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electriceell/pseuds/electriceell
Summary: Matt has to confront the loss of Stick. It's not easy, especially while he's trying to process Father Lantom's death.





	until you pull too hard (I may snap when I move close)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enthusiasmgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusiasmgirl/gifts).



> Title from Elastic Heart by Sia because it gives me some late season 3 Matt feels.

It’s not the same office as they used to have.

 

Matt wishes that it was. It doesn’t make sense, really, but Matt wants to be able to go back and do it right this time; go back before… everything.

 

Things are good now, with Karen and Foggy and the firm. Foggy’s savings from his time with HCB allowed them to get a nicer space where Karen can have her own office and their clients have a waiting room that isn’t overflowing with ancient office supplies. It’s close to the easy harmony they had before.

 

Close, but not quite the same. There are wounds between the three of them that are just starting to heal and they’re working to heal them, but it’s not like before, it can never be the same as before. Because of Matt.

 

Foggy is humming tunelessly in his office, flipping through files for a small claims case that he has next week and Karen is out, searching down previous employers for another client when Matt gets the call.

 

It’s from Maggie, which isn’t a big surprise. She’s called Matt a few times since everything with Fisk was done. He’s trying to have a relationship with her but it’s tentative and new and fragile. Matt gets up from his desk to close his door before answering the phone because he and Foggy have talked and _no more secrets_ doesn’t mean no privacy.

 

The conversation is short and tense. Maggie tells Matt that Father Lantom’s funeral is being held next Friday. He would hear it through the church’s newsletter but she wanted him to hear it from her. And then she hangs up.

 

Matt breathes out heavily as he sets his phone down and places his hands flat on his desk to ground himself. He keeps his breath even and his heart rate down. Even so, the world feels like it’s upending. He’s known Father Lantom is dead, watched as he saved Karen from Poindexter, but a funeral is something final.

 

(Except when it’s not. Except when he buried Elektra with a piece of his heart, but they dug up her grave. When they stole her body and brought her back to life to make her into a weapon. Took away the goodbye Matt had said; made him say it again and again and again as he fought against her, as he watched her kill Stick, as he held her while the sky crashed down on them. Her body was never found. How many times will he bury her?)

 

 _Whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life_.

 

His faith tells him the Father Lantom has gone on to somewhere better, but the ache that’s radiating throughout his chest doesn’t seem to care. All it seems to say is ‘gone, gone, gone’ with every beat of his heart. Not only is Father Lantom gone, the last time they had talked Matt lost his temper at him and how is he supposed to live with that. How many Hail Mary’s could ever absolve that?

 

Matt sobs out a laugh. He’s so selfish, worrying about his own absolution, his own pain. Father Lantom owed him nothing and gave him so much. What the hell is he supposed to do now?

Matt sits in his office alone for most of the afternoon, reliving that last conversation with Father Lantom, hearing himself spit out those words, not listening to any apologies. Eventually, Foggy knocks on the door, cracks it open, and pokes his head.

 

“Hey, Matt,” Foggy says, softly, “I wanted to see if you wanted to grab dinner. What’s going on, buddy?”

 

Foggy crosses the room to sit across from Matt, laying his hands over Matt’s on top of his desk. Matt blinks hard, pulling back one of his hands to scrub the tears from his face.

 

“I, uh, I just got a call from Maggie… from my mother,” Matt’s words turn up at the end as if it’s a question. It still tastes weird to call Maggie his mother. “She, um, she wanted me to know that… uh, that Father Lantom’s service will be next Friday. I guess she wanted me to hear it from her.” Matt says with a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

 

“Oh, buddy,” is all Foggy says before he moves around Matt’s desk and pulls him into a hug, Matt’s head tucked under his chin. “I’ll go with you, if you want, and I bet Karen wants to pay her respects, too.”

 

Foggy can feel Matt nodding under his chin. They stay like that for a while and if Matt cries, Foggy doesn’t say anything about it.

 

*********

 

At the funeral, Matt is surprised, but not upset to see Jessica, Danny, Luke, Colleen, and Claire. There’s still the part of him that wants to be angry at Foggy for telling other people about something personal and that part of him doesn’t want them to see him raw and vulnerable. But another part, the part that’s leaning into Foggy and letting him lead him more than is absolutely necessary, appreciates the support. He knows that they’re here because they care. Turns out dying and being reborn and losing faith and finding his friends again changed him.

 

Matt does a reading; Maggie had asked him to speak about Father Lantom’s life, but Matt just… he couldn’t. Anything he said would feel insincere because he couldn’t paint a full picture. And it had been here, in this church that Father Lantom had once said ‘nothing shines up a halo faster than death’ and Matt didn’t want to disrespect that, didn’t know how to talk about Father Lantom without the reverence that death sometimes buys you.

 

After the funeral, Maggie asks Matt how he’s doing and he can’t think but to repeat what he had once said to Father Lantom.

 

“I’m holding up like a good Catholic boy.”

 

Maggie sighs and pats him on the back before heading downstairs to help with the reception.

 

He didn’t cry through the whole funeral, though Foggy and Karen both wept openly. No, instead he played back their last conversation, played back watching Father Lantom die because Matt was too slow, too stupid to stop Poindexter.

When they head down to the basement, Matt quickly finds Jessica in a corner, alone. Either the nuns have decided they don’t care about her drinking or they’re a little scared of Jessica because Matt doesn’t need super senses to smell that her coffee mug holds only whiskey. When Matt joins her, she doesn’t say anything, just passes Matt the mug.

 

“That shouldn’t surprise me,” Matt hears Foggy say, followed by a gentle laugh from Luke.

 

“Well you know Jessica,” Luke says and Matt can hear the fondness in his voice. It makes him glad that they all found each other, even if it was a brutally painful time.

 

“How’s Matt doing,” Claire asks, which is when Matt decides to block them out and focus on the whiskey because he doesn’t need to hear Foggy’s anxious response or Karen’s heart speed up with worry.

 

“He’s…. well, he’s Matt,” Foggy starts, glancing over to see Matt take a large swig from Jessica’s mug. “He’s staying strong and trying to hide his pain, but I see his face when he thinks I’m not looking. He’s survived a lot, but Father Lantom, this soon after Elektra dying twice?” Foggy shakes his head.

 

“Poor Matt,” Claire sighs and leans into Luke.

 

“Well, and we can’t forget about Stick,” Danny adds.

 

“That’s true,” Luke agrees, “I don’t know all their shit, but it seems like Matt had a pretty close relationship with that old dude. Couldn’t have been easy watching Elektra kill him…”

 

Luke and Danny keep talking, but Foggy doesn’t hear any of it. He turns to Karen who looks concerned but she can’t really know. She doesn’t know who Stick was… Foggy feels like he’s going to throw up.

 

“I’m sorry,” Foggy says, a little too loudly, “what?”

 

“Oh shit, you didn’t know.” Claire sounds concerned and a little annoyed when she turns to Luke to ask, “Why didn’t he know?”

 

“Well…” Luke starts, hand coming up to rub his neck has he looked down at his feet, but Danny cuts in.

 

“We didn’t want to worry Foggy and Karen after Midland Circle because, you know, it seemed bad enough that their friend was dead. No one wants all the gory details. It didn’t seem important at the time. And then Matt came back and we were all happy about that and I guess it just kind of slipped our mind?” The end of his statement tapers off into a question, likely because Claire is giving him a you-must-be-kidding-me look and Colleen is just staring at him like he’s lost his mind.

 

“No, no,” Foggy says before Claire or Colleen can dig into Danny, “that makes sense. I’m not sure I would have really heard you if you told me then, but damn. Stick was… I don’t know, really, but he was something to Matt.”

 

“And Elektra,” Danny adds, usefully. “That Stick guy trained her too. She clearly had issues with him. I mean, training to be a warrior is never easy, but…”

 

“He seemed like a dick,” Luke finishes for Danny.

 

Karen chuckles and Foggy just nods. The Defenders peel off, Luke and Claire wandering over to join Matt and Jessica, Colleen and Danny chat quietly with Maggie over coffee, leaving Foggy and Karen alone.

 

“Poor Matt,” Karen says, glancing over to where Matt is sitting; he’s somewhere between tipsy and truly drunk and Jessica and Luke are helping him keep himself upright on the shitty foldout chairs that seem to inhabit every church basement.

 

 _So many people have left him_ is all Foggy can think because Stick is gone and Elektra is gone and Father Lantom is gone and Jack is long gone. And it turns out Matt’s long lost mother was always there but never there for him; she was as good as gone when it counted. And all the people who were there when it counted where in the ground.

 

_Poor Matt._

 

 

It’s Monday before Foggy sees Matt again after the reception. By the end Matt was blackout drunk and Jessica Jones had carried him home, literally. Foggy offered to get a cab and take him home, but Jessica insisted. Maybe it was the only way she knew how to be there for Matt and Foggy didn’t want to take that away from her.

 

Matt walks into the office like it’s any other day, with his tie just slightly off center and bruised knuckles from, most likely, hours with a punching bag. When he gets in he greets Karen with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes and Foggy is worried. Karen is too; Foggy can hear it in her voice when she offers Matt some coffee, which he politely declines, before heading to his office and shutting the door.

 

Soon after Matt closes his door, Karen walks into Foggy’s office and shuts the door.

 

“We need to talk to Matt about… well, you know, everyone fucking dying on him.” Karen drops herself into the chair across from Foggy and her eyes focus on his empty desk. “Not talking about it… it just isn’t an option. It doesn’t work,” her voice gets softer when she says, “I should know.”

 

Foggy sighs heavily because, yes, of course Matt should talk about this. So many people he trusted and loved had died in almost no time. But Matt was stubborn. Whenever Foggy pushed him to talk in the past Matt had deflected and disappeared until Foggy let it drop.

 

“I know, Karen,” Foggy says, “but you know how Matt is. If we push him to talk about the death of his two surrogate fathers and his ex, he might run off and do something really stupid as Daredevil. Or Matt Murdock.”

 

“I just… I think he needs closure Foggy. He had Father Lantom’s funeral to say goodbye, but what about this Stick guy? Seems like he died right before Matt… before Midland Circle. Maybe Matt needs a chance to say goodbye to him? I know, for me, with Kevin…” Karen trails off, eyes drifting to her where her hands are fidgeting in her lap.  


“I don’t know Karen, this guy was kind of terrible. I mean, who beats up little kids to turn them into soldiers? Who actually thinks they can justify —”

 

The door opens and Matt steps in, face blank.

 

“Monsters, Foggy, that’s who.”

 

“I’m sorry Matt, we…” Karen starts, but stops when Matt shakes his head.

 

“No, don’t apologize. You guys are trying to look out for me. Something I think we’ve established that I am not very good at.” Matt smiles, but there’s no happiness behind it. “You’re right though Karen, I got closure with Father Lantom at the funeral. And Stick? He’s gone and it’s for the best. He was a murderer; he killed a child, probably children, without remorse. The world is better off without him and so am I.”

 

“Matt…” Karen says softly.

 

“No, Karen, he was a bad person who did bad things. The world is better without him.” Matt grimaces as he says it. Foggy wonders if Matt knows how easy his face is to read.

 

“That may be true and it may not be, Matt, but he was there for you when you had no one,” Foggy tries to say gently. In all honesty, he agrees that the world is almost certainly better off without Stick, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t important to Matt.

 

Matt chuckles humorlessly.

 

“You said it yourself, Foggy, what kind of person trains a child to be soldier? I appreciate that he helped me control my senses, but beyond that? He’s the one who taught me how to harness the Devil, maybe even put him there. Stick’s dead. He’s gone. Just let it go.”

 

Matt walks out of Foggy’s office before giving Karen or Foggy a chance to respond.

 

“Sometimes I still forget he can hear everything,” Karen says with a sigh before leaving Foggy alone in his office.

 

 

Maggie is a bit surprised to get a call from Matthew. There relationship is still so careful, almost as if Matthew is waiting for the other shoe to drop. He gets a little closer, reaching out to Maggie and bringing her into his life and she thinks they’re past the initial shock of it all, but then he pulls back and disappears, only to resurface for mass weeks later as if nothing has happened.

 

So Maggie is surprised to get a call from Matthew; they hadn’t spoken since Lantom’s funeral. What’s more surprising is how emotional Matthew sounds, Maggie is much more used to him masking any emotion besides anger; it’s how he had been since he was a boy in the orphanage. She agrees to meet with him that afternoon, concerned by the slight shake in his voice and the way he had mumbled something about funeral arrangements.

 

*********

 

They end up sitting together in the room where Maggie and the other nuns had nursed Matt back to life, after Midland Circle. Matt had insisted on somewhere private.

 

They sit quietly for a few moments before Maggie breaks the silence.

 

“Well Matthew, you asked to meet. What’s on your mind?”

 

“I…” Matt starts. He sighs heavily as he gets up and starts pacing the room. He comes to a stop and squares himself with Maggie before saying, “Stick is dead.”

 

Matt can hear the uptick in Maggie’s heart and she reaches out an places a hand on Matt’s arm, consolingly, but her voice is filled with confusion when she asks, “Who?”

 

“Stick,” Matt says sharply, pulling his arm away, “You know, the old man who came to ‘help me’ after I got here, the closest thing I had to a parent after my father was murdered and my mother didn’t want me. Him. He’s dead.”

 

“Matthew, I’m so sorry, it sounds like he was important to you and you must have been close. It must be hard to lose him and Father Lantom so close together.”

 

Matt’s responding laugh is cold and humorless.

 

“Close? Is that how you think of that relationship?”

 

“I’m not sure I know what you mean Matthew. You said he helped you, was a parent figure to you when I couldn’t be.”

 

“Oh my God.” Matt can feel the blood drain from his face and his hands shaking with banked rage. “You really wanted so little to do with me you didn’t even keep track of me when I was under you care. I guess I assumed some part of you cared about me as a kid, but apparently not. I guess you didn’t give a shit that your blind son was getting beaten senseless by an old man bent on training a soldier.”

 

“Matthew…” Maggie stands up and reaches for him.

 

“No!” Matt jerks away. “No, you didn’t even pay attention to the bruises and the broken bones I came back with, did you really believe I was that clumsy and incompetent. As a kid I thought I was lucky that the nuns ignored me because I didn’t want anyone to know, but my own _mother_ couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to what was in front of her nose.

 

“Matthew, please, try to understand…”

 

“I’m not finished! Do you want to know what he did when I wasn’t learning fast enough or if he just was in a bad mood? He’d have me run sprints until I was sick. And if I threw up he just made me keep running. If I cried he’d beat the shit out of me. Tell me he’d give me something to cry about.

 

“Once, he dislocated my arm and told me good soldiers have to be able to do first aid. I wasn’t able to pop my arm back into the socket for a week. The next time I had to set my own broken finger. And you were there, watching the whole fucking time and not doing a God damned thing!

 

“It’s one thing to abandon your son, _mother_ ,” he spits out last word with as much venom as he can muster, “but you sent me to hell, you used my money to pay him, and you left me alone to die in hell!”

 

At the end of his tirade Matt is breathing heavily. He turns to face Maggie and he realizes she’s seated again. Matt can smell her tears and hear her gentle. A wave of guilt washes over Matt and he feels ashamed at his cruelty. Maybe he was sent to hell, but he’s got the devil in him. Maybe hell was where he belonged.

 

“I’m…”

 

“You’re what, Matthew?” Maggie says through tears, “You’re sorry? You didn’t mean to hurt me? I think that’s exactly what you meant and I think that’s exactly what I deserved.”

 

“I _am_ sorry and I know that you were sick.” Matt sighs. He can’t deny that he meant to hurt. “My grandmother, she used to say Murdock boys have the devil in them. Sometimes I think she’s right.”

 

Maggie surprises Matt with a wet laugh. “Because you have a temper Matthew? You think you have the devil in you because you get angry some times?”

 

“No… because when I lose my temper I punch until the other guy is barely alive and I like it. Sometimes it’s hard to stop. With Fisk, I… I wanted to kill him. I wanted blood. How could I not think I have the devil in me.”

 

Maggie sinks down next to where Matt is sitting on the floor and tentatively places a hand on his shoulder. “Matthew, your father bloodied men for a living. Do you think he had the devil in him?”

 

“No, but —”

 

“And I abandoned my own son. I let him grow up an orphan, feeling unloved and unwanted. Like you said, I sent him to hell and left him to die. Surely that means I have the devil in me?

 

“We all have our demons, Matthew. No one is without pain. No one’s life is free of temptation towards sin. What matters is how act in the face of those temptations. After I had you I was very sick. I felt broken and empty and evil for not caring for you. I felt that a wickedness had possessed me and returning to God seemed like the only choice. And I got better. But then your father was killed and you needed a mother and I couldn’t be that for you. The shame I felt… I was protecting myself and, of course, you paid the price. Good people make bad choices all the time Matthew. It doesn’t mean the devil is in them.”

 

“You don’t understand,” Matt says quietly, “it feels like there’s a darkness that made it’s home in my soul, like there’s a black stain that I can’t get rid of. No amount of self-control or prayer can get it out.”

 

“Oh Matthew, have you ever considering…” Maggie pauses, apparently choosing her words carefully, “have you ever thought about talking to someone about this?”

 

“I do,” Matt says quickly, then stops swallowing around a lump in his throat, “Well, I did.”

 

“Father Lantom?”

 

“Yea. But now he’s gone.”

 

“I’m not telling you what to do, Matthew, not as if it’s ever worked in the past,” Maggie starts dryly, “but I think you should consider seeing a therapist.”

 

“No, I don’t need —”

 

“I know you don’t think you need anyone, Matthew, but sometimes asking for help is the best way to help the people around you. If I had been able to… get help when you were born your life might have been so different. Just… promise me you’ll think about it?”

 

“I will.”

 

*********

 

Stick’s funeral is a small affair; just Matt, Foggy, Karen, and Maggie standing over a freshly dug grave and an empty casket. After Stick died and Midland Circle fell, Stick’s body was never found. Matt has a feeling someone from the Chaste came for it, but he wishes he had a body to put in the ground, to make it feel more real.

 

“Would you like to say anything Matthew?” Maggie asks gently.

Matt blinks the tears from his eyes and clears his throat before saying, “Stick was an important part of my life. Without him, I wouldn’t be who I am.”

 

Everyone waits expectantly for Matt to continue, but he just shakes his head and wipes his eyes.

 

“Can I say something?” Foggy asks and continues when Matt nods, “Stick was not a great dude.”

 

Karen jabs Foggy with her elbow.

 

“Ow! Karen! Stick was not a great dude BUT,” Foggy looks at Karen pointedly, “but he helped Matt and helped shape Matt into the incredible man he is today. For that, I’m thankful.” Foggy reaches over and pats Matt on the back before folding him into a hug.

 

When Foggy lets go of Matt, Maggie reaches up and gives Matt a kiss on the cheek before heading back into St. Agnes.

 

“How’re you doing, Matt?” Karen asks, taking her turn to hug Matt.

 

“I’m… I don’t know. Foggy’s right, Stick was… not a great person. But he also gave me so much. He gave me control of my senses, taught me how to work hard. Without him I wouldn’t be able to help people as Daredevil. I don’t know who I would be if he hadn’t helped me.

 

“I just, I don’t know how to reconcile everything he gave me with everything he did to me. It feels a little like being orphaned again. It’s not like when dad died, but it hurts. It hurts more than it should.” Matt grimaces, as if feeling pain at a loss is something to be ashamed of.

 

“Look, Matt, when my mom died and then Kevin died and my dad kicked me out, there was a hole in me. For a long time I thought the loneliness would swallow me whole, but it didn’t. It didn’t because I found the strangest friends in the strangest places and they started to fill that hole in me. There’s no replacing who you’ve lost, but you can build yourself a new family.”

 

“And Matty, you’ve already found us. You already have a family. You’ve lost a lot and we’ve all been through a lot, but we’ll find a way through this, together.”

 


End file.
